This is the forum for Redshift's upcoming game. Its working title is Grendelmoore. The game is still under development. (Well, it's under development since years, but it went through many changes during the years and now the game which was started as a fantasy card game is more of a fantasy board game.) The release date is somewhere at the second half of 2015.

So for those who don't know what this whole thing is: back in 2011 we decided to take the card game which you can play in The Quest's inns and make it a standalone game, with more details, complex rules, better graphics, own story, selectable game modes and so on. The idea remained the same, but the too much complicated first ideas of game rules got simplified during the years and instead of cards now you'll have "magic coins" or call them whatever you want. You have to collect them and play with them on your way to the palace of the city of Mithria (remember this city from The Quest?), where in a final match against the best gamers the winner can get the Big Fat Final Prize of course.

The game has four different decks: Warrior, Sorcerer, Necromancer and Overlord. Each deck has 25 different types of collectable coins and two very rare special ones (the heroes). So the full game has 100 + 8 types of coins, with different attributes and roles. Some of them are like action cards with instant effects, some of them are marks with effects which lasts x game turns, some of them are creatures which you can place onto the gaming board and move them there, battle with them or occupy special nodes on the field which are having special effects. And also there is a fourth type of coins: the heroes, the best, very rare creature coins with unique abilities.

The game looks similar to The Quest's inn games: a table/board, the two players' portraits and health points in two opposite corners, the own deck of cards/coins at the top/bottom of the screen, and of course the game field (or battle field) takes place in the center.The goal is also similar to The Quest's card game goal: you have to defeat the other player, which means lowering his/her health to zero while trying to keep your health above zero. You can do this directly with action and mark coins on enemy and on yourself or with capturing special damaging or healing nodes on the board with your creatures - it's up to you.

So, about the board: you can find the biggest change in the gameplay here. These are magic boards with small, circle-shaped "slots" or fields for the creature coins. These slots are connected with each other with tunnels, some slots are having special effects (we call them nodes). You can place only the creature coins into these slots to activate the table, all other coins you have to use directly on the enemy or on yourself or play with them as marks.The board (with its special nodes, connection tunnels, number of slots, graphical style, etc.) will always change as you go from place to place during your adventures. Just like in The Quest, you can step inside inns or gambling houses, but also you can get inside houses, caves, ships, magic towers etc. where also new game boards and players are awaiting you.All gaming places will have own, local rules: for example, in one inn you can play only with warrior coins, at the other place you can play for winning a rare necromancer coin, another place has short match time with limited number of turns, again another place has a limitation of the number of coins you can have in your deck, etc. Some new players will appear only if you already defeated another player, some new gaming places will be activated only after you have a special coin in your deck, etc.

During your adventures (if you choose the main champaign game mode) you will get not just one deck's coins but various coins for various decks. At any time you can check your "inventory screen" where you can see all coins you got until now (you can have as many coins from one type as you want) and also you can build your own actual deck here. For example, making a "best of warrior and overlord" mixed deck, or putting in only creature coins, or collecting a "healing only" deck to have as much healing coins for your creatures and for yourself as you can, etc. It will all depend on the actual gaming place's rules or on the strategy you choose to defeat your current enemy.

The main goal is to get to the city's palace and defeat the big boss, of course. From the game's intro you'll know what to do, why you go to this challenge, what's your main mission and what's the real final prize.

The story, all the rules, graphics, decks, gaming places, the intro, the enemies and any other game-related stuff are already done, now we only have to wait for our programmer, Elendil to make the game's AI (artifical intelligence). Then, when you'll be able to play a match against an enemy, the first beta testings can start.

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Okay, that's it for now. I'll post more info about the game later, also I think I'll start a Facebook page for Redshift soon, where we'll place any news we'll have.Now I'm posting here some screenshots from the game. Remember that all these stuff are under development so many elements can (and will) change in the near future. Many animations are missing now, and even the lighting effects are missing, they will appear in later versions. This version is only for us, for testing. Not even the letters we use here or there will remain the same. But at least you'll get the picture how the game will look.By the way, the graphic style is the usual Redshift style: classic hand drawn, no 3D. I hope you'll like it. : )

Here is the first picture: an ingame screenshot. The resolution is my current PC's screen resolution, don't worry about that, the game looks great on all possible resolutions. (Sorry for not fitting into the forum's narrow borders, I don't know how to do it right so please right-click on the pictures and select save or show full picture.)As I wrote about it above, you can see the two players with their portraits and health, the magic coins in the player's hand (or at least the ones which I drew from my deck), and in the middle there is the battlefield with the slots where you can place and move your creature coins.The board is a wooden table now in a typical inn, one of the first gaming places during your adventures. Every table will have different web of slots and tunnels and special nodes, of course. This is a simple table, for beginners.At the two sides of the table you can see fixed little places where all your (and the enemy's) activated marks are shown - the little numbers here shows how many turns these marks will remain active.Right now the enemy's Court Wizard creature attacks one of my creatures with a fireball spell, while I'm checking my coins, selecting a Priest creature for getting some info about his attributes. (As you can see, all creatures will have their own special abilities too.)The usual circle-shaped coins are all creature coins. The terragonal coins are the action coins, while the hexagonal ones are the mark coins. Of course this is only the first deck, the Warrior - all four decks' coins has somewhat different style.

The second shot: the first inn in the game. This is how it looks when you step inside an inn. (Of course the interior picture is an animation originally.) As you can see currently there are five players inside. You can see the inn's name and symbol, the local rules of this gaming place, and if you select a player you can see his/her special abilities too.

The third shot: the city of Mithria, where your adventures will take place. (Of course it's fully animated too originally, moving clouds, waterfalls, animals, flags etc.) You'll start down at the ship which took you here. With time you'll be able to play here and there, even the ship's captain is ready for a warm-up match at his own table. You'll get inside secret caves, farm houses, taverns, even you can catch some kids around the marketplace for a quick easy match, and if you're brave enough you can play with undeads at the cemetery.The map has three large parts, if you'll get strong enough you'll step above, inside the city walls to the city center with its rich people and famous gambling houses where experienced players are awaiting you. (But the really careful players can get inside through secret tunnels too which are leading inside otherwise locked buildings with secret players...)The final part will be the palace itself at the top level of the island, with all its surroundings, including magic towers and some very powerful necromancer buildings at the other side of those bridges, on that woody island. And when the palace's gate will open for you you'll be ready to play with the best players, including famous lords and even the governor himself.

There will be more screenshots and other graphic stuff later. But for a start, I think it's enough. : ) Later we'll getting more into the game's background story, as well as knowing more about the four decks, with all their own history, gaming style and heroes. Also you'll get some large "screen saver" graphics about their biggest leaders.

Thanks!By the way, in the past few hours the game's working title became Grendelmoore. : ) Well, things like this happen during a game's development... Sorry. : ) Just modified the forum's title too. Soon you'll know why the title has changed to this.And of course now anybody can post a reply here - at the beginning this thread's permissions were wrong because of a forum update, but Elendil now fixed that.

Yes, this game looks fantastic!! And I can tell it's going to be very enjoyable to play! The name change is just fine, we know the game is still being worked on, there are bound to be some changes! Excellent work on this, I can't wait to play it!!

Oh my god. That is some seriously amazing art. I would buy the game just to see more of it! And the gameplay sounds great as well, although it's probably hard to see how great it is without being able to play it

Just think about all the fun you had playing the card game in the Quest. How many hours I spent doing just that. It was awesome. So this should be awesome plus. : ) I think that was one of the things that really surprised me about the Quest--and I loved every minute of it.

Thanks everybody! And wow, it's good to see here such a longtime fan of our games, Andreas - I almost forgot about Dragonfire. : ) It was just our first try back in 2001, a game which was made within 5 weeks from start to finish. Well, I'm not really proud of that now, but somewhere you have to start...

Cat: yes, if somebody loved the card game in TQ, she/he will love this too, that's for sure! It's not that complex like it sounds. The basics are the same, just with a bit more rules, better graphics, more game modes, own story, etc.

Talking about story, here goes Grendelmoore's background story in the way you'll see it in the game. It's not the intro (the intro will be visible only if you choose the champaign game mode), but it gives some info about the history of Grendelmoore:

Just made a new Grendelmoore-related post to Facebook, but I'll copy it here, just in case somebody doesn't like that site. : ) So:

Last time - after showing some screenshots from the game - I made a post with its background story. Now it's time for introducing all four factions (or decks), one by one, with their own story, heroes and a wallpaper-like image with one of their powerful creatures.Let's start with the first one: the Warrior. Here goes its story with two heroes...